Portscatho January 2017: Part 5

All good things come to an end and so did our sojourn on the Roseland Peninsular. We took a chance with the weather and finished off with two shorter walks to join up the dots between previously completed stretches. Walk 1 (after a Magical Mystery Tour on a Number 50 bus) was a 4 mile linear one from Veryan back to Portscatho. Walk two was a circular 4 miler from Portloe to Portholland and back to Portloe via the Coastal Footpath. Hey, no rain on either of them.

I like coming across the unusual in unexpected places and this wasn't far from the start of our first walk just outside of Veryan. A cheery piece of burnished metalwork by the footpath as it passed through an old mill in a wooded valley down to the sea.

Looking east across the sands of Pendower Beach towards Nare Head, which we've already walked a while back.

Looking west at the end of our walk towards Portscatho across Porthcurnick Beach.

The Hidden Hut at Porthcurnick. I've read that it has a cult following for its food and foodie events in the summer months. It's not that hidden but it's a bit of a walk to get there.

And on to Walk 2. The next three shots, taken within a minute of each other, illustrate what makes walking the Coastal Footpath so interesting and varied. Shot 1: looking out to sea at Perbagus Point above Portholland Cove.

Shot 2: a few degrees to the right of Shot 1.

Shot 3: a few more degrees to the right of Shot 2.

Flowers by the wayside: an early Common Violet.

Flowers by the wayside: early flowering Pasties (Crimpus oggyensis). Distinguished by their diaphanous petals and rich pseudo-stamen clusters designed to tempt passing foragers. A rare find and a case of 'finders' keepers', in clear contravention of the 1968 Wildlife Act which prohibits the picking and eating of wildflowers.

Looking west up the coast with Gull Rock clearly visible off Nare Head.

A Robin lurking in the bracken.

A Grey Heron lurking on the rocks. It's not often that we see them on the seashore. It's frozen in concentration and will stay perfectly still by the water's edge for long lengths of time, searching for fish. Grey Herons seem to have an uncanny ability to freeze, all concentration focused on their quarry. I wonder what it was waiting for. Crabs? Small fish? Shrimps? Probably anything it could catch.

Looking down on the end of our second walk, Portloe. A small fishing/tourist village featured as St Gweep in a rather strange comedy in the 1990s called Wild West and starring Dawn French and Catherine Tate. It once had an RNLI lifeboat (circa 1870) but they discovered that the weather that caused demands on their services came from the direction that prevented them getting the lifeboat out of the harbour. They persevered for a few years and then decided to pack their oars away. Nowadays, people are more likely to have heard of the gastropub near the slipway, the Lugger, than Portloe itself.

I liked the undulating handrail on the side of the footpath as it dropped into the village.

One of the guides to this particular walk had the strange instruction: 'turn right at the duck'. Know we know, even though the duck looks suspiciously like a gull. To avoid confusing any rambling ornithologists, perhaps the walk guide should be revised to say 'turn right at the gull'?

She seems to be saying "I'll keep an eye out for you for when you are next passing". We might just do that.